Come la vita stessa: perché il workshop è la via didattica privilegiata (ma non esclusiva) per l'educazione degli adulti | Like life itself: why the workshop is the preferred (but not exclusive) educational way for adult education

This article addresses the specific characteristics of the workshop as a most appropriate learning strategy for adults, because it promotes the development of participatory, creative, and reflective behaviors, which are considered, at the same time, manifestation and exercise of adult identity. On proceed to a critical consideration of its strengths and difficulties, and of distortions or reductionisms due to its superficial application, starting from a writing by Eduard C. Lindeman – author of The Meaning of Adult Education (1926), a milestone for andragogical theory and practice – explicitly dedicated to the workshop operating methods. The mainly purpose is to reveal and discuss some functionalities of experiential learning which, now as then, are regarding a concept of education based on active exercise of intellectual and emotional faculties, interpersonal relationships and enhancement of experience, in terms of situated knowledge, critical approach and reflexivity.